Celebrate Earth Day 2006 This April by Recycling Old Cell Phones

Louisville, KY – On International Earth Day, April 22, 2006, ECO-CELL, a Louisville-based cell phone recycling and fundraising company, announces a simple way that North Americans can help save the environment by recycling used cell phones.

“Recycling cell phones protects landfills from the many potentially hazardous chemicals found in the phones, including antimony, arsenic, copper, cadmium, lead, and zinc,” said Eric Ronay, president of ECO-CELL. “Over 75% of discarded cell phones end up in landfills where their toxins are likely to poison groundwater. A simple way that we can help prevent the environmental dangers from discarded cell phones is through recycling.”

Thirty-six years after the United States celebrated the first Earth Day in 1970, the reality is that due to the increasing presence of technology we still struggle with environmental dangers. A partner of the Earth Day Network, ECO-CELL helps combat these dangers through partnerships with over 50 zoos and other organizations across the nation to collect and recycle old phones.

ECO-CELL partners include the Smithsonian National Zoo, San Diego Zoo, Zoo Atlanta, Denver Zoo, Philadelphia Zoo, Cleveland Zoo, Phoenix Zoo and Louisville Zoo. A complete list of participating zoos can be found at www.eco-cell.org. In addition to collection boxes at the participating zoos, used phones can also be mailed directly to ECO-CELL with the proceeds being designated for a specific zoo.

As part of the program, participating zoos gather cell phones at drop boxes inside the zoo and turn the phones over to ECO-CELL who sells the phones to companies that refurbish and sell them to first-time users abroad. Phones that cannot be resold are recycled using best demonstrated technologies for recycling. A portion of phones are also donated to senior citizens’ centers and battered women shelters. The proceeds from the sale of the phones go back to the zoos to raise funds for their specific conservation programs. The partnerships with zoos help increase awareness of the damaging effects of cell phones that end up in landfills, furthering the zoo mission of conservation education.

Due to constantly changing technology, the average lifespan for cell phones is 14 months. According to the EPA there are over 500 million broken or unusable cell phones in the U.S. with over 130 million added each year. Less than 2% are recycled. According to INFORM Inc., 130 million cell phones are discarded annually in the United States.

About ECO-CELL
ECO-CELL is a cell phone recycling and fundraising company that works with a variety of associations, particularly zoos and conservations programs, to collect used cell phones and raise funds. ECO-CELL helps keep cell phones out of landfills and provides organizations with a turn-key, environmentally focused fund-raising program. ECO-CELL works with over 50 zoos across North America and Canada including the Zoo Atlanta, Denver Zoo, Philadelphia Zoo, Cleveland Zoo, Phoenix Zoo, Louisville Zoo, Living Desert, and Jardin Zoologique du Quebec. For more information visit: www.eco-cell.org.


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